Natick firm provides information about drinking water quality

Purdex LLC, an independent, drinking water certification company that provides empirical information about the quality and safety of drinking water, recently launched Purdex Score, the first and only national system that rates the health and safety of drinking water.

Can a company make a splash by rating the health and safety of drinking water? Sure it can.

Purdex LLC, an independent, drinking water certification company that provides empirical information about the quality and safety of drinking water, recently launched Purdex Score, the first and only national system that rates the health and safety of drinking water.

A free, unbiased online rating system for thousands of public water systems in the United States, major bottled water brands and filtration systems, the Purdex Score provides consumers with information about the relative safety and purity of their drinking water. All public water systems conduct annual water sample testing but before Purdex, comparing water quality was a complicated, rarely undertaken process, the company states. Purdex also obtained independent testing results to generate Purdex Scores for many popular bottled water companies.

The Natick company was founded by twins, Thomas and Michael Keegan, experts with a combined 30 years of experience helping public water systems manage compliance and reporting of test data in annual water quality reports. After publishing and distributing more than 50 million water quality reports to communities across the country, amassing the nation's largest and most current database of certified drinking water sample test data, the Keegans launched Purdex to answer a simple question: "Is my water safe to drink?"

"By launching a free website tool, the Purdex Score, we've created an easy way to see how your water measures up; our scoring algorithm uses the same data that the EPA uses to determine compliance with water quality standards," says Thomas Keegan. "Consumers around the country now can make more informed decisions about the water they drink, whether it's from the tap or bottle. We also help them understand which filtration system might work best, based on their own water's contaminant profile."

Based on federal standards and an algorithm developed by Purdex, and confirmed by the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard University's School of Public Health, the Purdex Score objectively rates public water systems on a scale from 0-1,000; higher scores relate to better water quality. According to the Purdex Score, results from 600 to 799 is considered good, from 800 through 899 is very good and from 900 to 1,000 is exceptional. For example, based on the Purdex Score the five best water systems in the top 10 metropolitan areas (by population) are Chicago (783), Boston (737), Philadelphia (687), Atlanta (684) and Miami (656). The five worst are Los Angeles (101), Houston (236), Washington, D.C. (436), Dallas (619) and New York City (638).

The Purdex Score website also provides context such as water system ranking, trending analysis and information about contaminants. The Purdex database contains millions of sample test results for hundreds of drinking water contaminants, collected from over 50,000 community water systems nationwide. The database is updated on a regular basis once new sample test results are officially validated.

Purdex also offers Purdex Mark, an independent certification that enables businesses to generate awareness about the purity of their water and water-related products.

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The Keegans started Purdex last year though they had been working on the methodology and algorithm for nine years.

ANSWER: Since our main objective is to provide consumers with a "purity index" that relates to the purity of their drinking water, we simply combined these two words and came up with Purdex.

Q: Why did you choose your current locale?

A: Natick is a wonderful place for our business as it’s close to many services as well as major highways and public transportation.

Q: What did you do before you started this business?

A: For the last 15 years, Tom and I have owned and operated Gemini Group, a communications and compliance-consulting company dedicated to the drinking water industry.

Q: What does your company sell?

A: At the moment, the Purdex Score information and resources are made available at no cost to consumers. We also offer business intelligence information for commercial use.

Q: What makes you different from the competition?

A: Our free Web-based Purdex Score establishes an industry standard, providing consumers for the first time ever with information they can use to evaluate the many choices when it comes to drinking water. The Purdex Score is based on the company’s proprietary algorithm that uses the nation’s largest and most current database containing millions of testing results from more than 50,000 public water systems, and incorporates federal health-based standards for water safety.

We maintain a data warehouse containing highly targeted and actionable research information related to the quality of drinking water for more than 80 percent of the U.S. population. Here’s how our research information can be used:

Businesses can profit from a hyper-targeted, highly cost-effective marketing program. Using the Purdex algorithm, we are able to generate an analytic report which can show a target community’s water-quality rating as exceptional, very good, good, adequate or challenged. A business can spend less money on all marketing efforts since they can now effectively target only the consumers that can benefit from their product or service.

A company can leverage targeted business intelligence to more cost effectively drive programs such as direct response, print advertising, email marketing, TV/cable/radio advertising, etc. by delivering the message to only those consumers who would most benefit from the company’s products or services.

Businesses can directly benefit from predicative analytics based on several years of sample data collection.

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Q: What is the price of your service?

A: We offer the Purdex Score information for free. However, our business intelligence and research information is priced based on the scope of research required.

Q: Any future plans?

A: Once we have established ourselves as the standard by which consumers of drinking water products defer to us before making decisions about the water they drink, we will promote our certification program that will allow companies such as bottled water and filter system companies to leverage the Purdex mark to drive increased revenue.

Q: Any news to report?

A: We will soon be issuing our first annual National Purdex Awards program where we award the best water departments holding the highest Purdex scores.

Q: Do you have any MetroWest connections?

A: I live in Wayland and Tom lives in Sudbury. Both of us were born and raised in Norwood.

Q: If tap water tastes good, does that mean the quality or the purity of the water is good?

A: Most people judge drinking water by its taste but good taste doesn’t always correlate with water purity. There’s no guarantee that good tasting water meets water quality standards. The Purdex Score is an objective rating system that evaluates water quality based on federal drinking water regulations.

Q: Why might a city’s water systems provide very different readings in terms of water quality?

A: There are many reasons why water quality varies from water system to water system. The most significant reason is that not all water sources are the same. Each water source whether from a reservoir, river or underground well contains contaminants that are unique to the individual source. Another reason has to do with the type of water treatment process a water system has in place. Not all treatment processes are the same and each one is designed to manage the unique properties of a water system’s water source.

Q: How safe is drinking water in the United States? Are systems that score low on the Purdex Score scale still safe to drink?

A: The vast majority of public water are rated adequate, good and very good, but there are systems around the country that ranked as challenged, which means people in those areas might want to take a closer look at what’s in their water. People who live in areas with exceptional water should feel proud.

Drinking challenged water may not be a problem for most people, but could be an issue for the immunosuppressed, the elderly and other vulnerable population groups. Recent research from the EPA shows that more than 1 million people could get sick each year from contaminated tap water; contaminants in the water could lead to mild issues such as nausea, lung irritation, skin rash, vomiting and dizziness though more serious issues include liver and kidney damage, nervous system disorders, immune system damage, birth defects and cancer.

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Keep in mind: While drinking water in the United States is generally considered safe, it can still contain contaminants. But how pure your drinking water is – that is, the amount of contaminants present – can vary widely from town to town, state to state, or bottled water to bottled water.

Q: Is all bottled water the same?

A: No. In fact, there are many differences between bottled water products. For example, bottled water that comes from municipal sources are often treated, filtered or purified. However, not all bottled water is. In fact, there are many types of bottled water, regulated by the FDA, including:

Mineral water that contains naturally occurring dissolved minerals.

Spring water that originate from underground water sources.

Purified water that has been treated either through distillation, deionization or reverse osmosis to remove impurities.

Sparkling water that can be bubbly from the source or be carbonated before bottling.

They may all be fine to drink, but they may have different attributes such as taste, aroma and purity levels. The brands that score the highest on the Purdex Score may be those that have undergone treatment that eliminates impurities.

Purdex LLC is at 190 North Main St., Natick. For more information, visit www.purdex.com. To get a water system's Purdex Score, visit www.purdex.com/System_Search.aspx.